The poem is called "High Flight" it was written by Officer Gillespie Magee, No 412 squadron, RCAF, Killed 11 December 1941.

It was read that the funerals of both my grandfather and dad, who were both pilots. Its a deeply personal poem to me and one of my favorites. I get emotional each time I read it.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high unsurpassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

I HEARD it
 

I was reading the paper and heard this noise, sorta like a sonic boom. I got right up and looked out the window, wondering what it was. I thought it was just a big truck or something, but no one was on the street. I didn't have the radio or tv on, which is rare for me. Didn't think any more about it. I didn't find out about it until I was on the way to the nail salon and turned on the radio. One of the announcers said that he had heard it around 8:00 and then it all came together. AlphaSig, did you hear it in Plano? I'm in east Fort Worth and it was LOUD.
This is so sad. I remember when the Challenger exploded; I was at work and the school secretary came screaming into the library to tell me to turn on the tv.
My prayers to all the families.

Re: I HEARD it
 

Unfortunately, did not hear it in Plano... my mother called me to the TV when she heard the news. There was an unconfirmed report (mentioned earlier in this thread) that some debris did land in east Plano, about five miles from where I live.

I have seen the reentry of a Shuttle a few years back when I was living in San Antonio. Again, I never heard the sonic boom but we could easily see the 'fireball' and contrail as it zoomed across the San Antonio sky. San Antonio and Kennedy Space Center are approximately the same latitude (N 28 degrees).

I remember reading that the orbital inclination for this mission STS-107 was 39 degrees (the maximum orbital inclination from the Cape launches is 57.6 degrees; International Space Station missions are flown at 51.6).

OMG, lifesaver. That was also the poem for my father, a "flying doctor" whose plane crashed as he took off on his way to work. I couldn't hear it for years without dissolving in tears.

He was physician to many of the earliest astronauts--some of whom came to our house and several of whom died on the job. When they were killed, he reminded us that they died doing what they loved...when he died, at least I knew that he too had been doing what he loved.

I'm really sad about this. I just got back from our regional conclave and we were briefed by Israeli diplomats before a moment of silence. On board the shuttle was also Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/in...al/02ISRA.html

This is just a horrible tragedy and I hurt for both Americans and Israelis.

-Rudey
--Upset

I just found out that David Brown is a cousin of a lady that I am related to...one of those "six degrees" relationships.

I was in Houston when the Challenger crashed. I was in one of the Houston hospitals' reception area, going to apply for a job. The way they were talking on the room's TV, at first I thought Reagan had died. It was a veryyy sad time to be in Houston.

Laurel Clark is from my hometown (Racine, Wisconsin) and is a longtime friend of my step-father.

Now that I've had some time to think about this, I've decided to post my thoughts. I apologize for the length, but space exploration is something of a passion and hobby for me and I feel very strongly about it.

As some of you may remember, I was a counselor at Space Camp this past summer. The camp is in Kansas, and has unprecedented rapport with NASA. Level III of the camp is one of the few student groups in the country that 1) has a regularly scheduled visit time or 2) that gets the type of access to facilities that we get. Because of this many of the people I worked with knew the astronauts or were within "one degree" of them. Personally, I know Jeff Ashbey who was commander of the Shuttle back in October so I'm one of those within one degree people, however many of the full time staff were much closer.

Anyways, it is safe to say that I have very good grasp of things and an understanding higher than the average layperson on the shuttle systems, and the way in which NASA thinks.

First of all, I think that unlike in Challenger, we will find that no one person or company will be able to be blamed. I think that the damage to the wing upon lift-off will be important...that's just my speculation. However, that means that Columbia was doomed to suffer this fate. There was no way of knowing the extent of the damage to the wing, particularly in the time period needed to order an abort of the mission (longest abort option time window is for the "Abort Once Around" or AOA which can be ordered at about 10 maybe 15 minutes after lift-off if even that long). As it has been said in various news outlets the Astronauts had no way of repairing the tiles once in space, and since the mission was solely dedicated to science, the robot arm was not in the payload bay. It appears to me that this was inevietable.

While this is a tragedy, and a thorough investigation needs to be done, I don't think that we can ground the shuttle for an extended period of time. After Challenger it was nearly 3 years until the next launch, such a hiatus now would absolutely halt all the progress that we have made with the Shuttle Program.

We are still dedicated to the International Space Station, and right now there are three men aboard. They can stay there until June and get home without any problems by using the Russian Soyuz capsule. However it is very important that humans continue to have a permanent presence in space. The science being done on ISS has major implications in a variety of areas. The potential to create medicines that can't be made on the ground due to gravity might be the most powerful ever created, capable of curing cancer, or alzheimers or who knows what else. The experiments in nanotechnology might further the miniaturization of our electronics.
To date over 20000 products have either been directly resultant of the space program or have been improved by technology developed by NASA. Everything from improving the absorbancy of disposable diapers (rip one open and add water to the crystals...sodium polyacrylate - direct from NASA) to computer technology, to food preservation have all been pioneered by NASA scientists and engineers.
One of the facts that my bosses told the campers was that for every $1 dollar spent on NASA $8 dollars are returned to the US Economy. Also less than half of one penny of one tax dollar in the US goes to the budget of NASA, so don't think you are putting a bunch of money in to a place that loses orbiters. You are spending way more money on building 'Star Wars' and Fighter planes that are ineffective in fighting terrorism (but are good for bombing Iraq).
In order to continue to benefit from the science on ISS it is important that the Shuttles start flying during this year. The rest of the missions this year are dedicated to construction on the ISS to increase it's ability as a science outpost.

Another thing to note. Last year Congress cut NASA's budget again, this time so much that we were only scheduled to fly 4 missions in 2003, down from 6 in 2002 that were scheduled. These numbers are down from the 14 that the shuttle fleet were flying in pre-Challenger years (14 is way too much, but it shows what was possible however it was unsafe). 4 missions a year!!! That's it, that alone is extending the construction schedule of the ISS by 3 more years most likely. If anything, to reap the rewards of space exploration there should be at least 6 launches a year.

I urge everyone to contact your Senators and Representatives urging them to support measures to fund NASA. Contact Senator Sam Brownback R-Kansas who is the chair of the Senate Sub-Commitee on Space, Science and Technology asking the same.

Finally, as I step off my soapbox, I'll close with a quote from Gus Grissom, America's second man in space who died in the Apollo I fire. I've talked to several astronauts and they agree with the statement fully. With these words, we should find the strength to carry on.

"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."
-Gus Grissom

She's also a Gamma Phi Beta, from the Gamma chapter at Wisconsin...